8 Scientific Conspiracies That Turned Out To Be True

Alex Jones, the far-right radio host and conspiracy theorist of Infowars fame, claimed chemicals in the water are turning frogs gay. While there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of evidence to back up his “theory” that water is affecting frogs’ sexuality, some studies seem to suggest man-made chemicals do have an effect on a frog’s sex.

A 2010 paper from the University of California, Berkeley, found that as many as one in 10 male frogs exposed to atrazine, a common pesticide, experience a hormonal imbalance that effectively turns them female. They produce estrogen, mate with males, and even lay eggs. More recently, studies have shown that chemicals found in suburban ponds and road salts can also affect a frog’s sex.

The Public Health Service watched as black men died of syphilis unnecessarily, in the name of science

Syphilis is a nasty disease that, if not treated, can result in blindness, paralysis, and/or death, and until the discovery of penicillin, there was no cure. Still, that does not excuse the unethical treatment of poor, black men who were recruited to take part in a program to record the natural progress of the disease.

The “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” began operation in 1932, when 600 men from Macon County, a deprived region of Alabama, were drafted. Of those, 399 had syphilis. The men were misled and told they would receive treatment for “bad blood”, which they did not recieve.

What’s worse, the researchers continued the experiment after penicillin became the accepted treatment for syphilis in 1945. The experiment, initially projected to last six months, carried on for 40 years. For some reason, doctors decided it was in medicine’s best interest to watch the men die a slow and painful death unnecessarily. The research came to an end in 1972, after The New York Times published a story on the study. During the trial, 28 men died of syphilis, 100 more from related causes, and 40 spouses contracted the disease.